Relationships between Trees and Fungi

Beefsteak fungus

 

Fungi can attack living trees as well as dead wood. While some species - notably the so-called 'brackets' and the stump-rotting gilled fungi - play an important role in turning dead trees into humus that can be reused by living plants, great damage is done to forests by those fungal species that attack healthy trees. Parasitic fungi, such as this Fistulina hepatica, enter where the bark of the tree has been damaged, and by the time fruitbodies appear the tree is already seriously infected and, in effect, on Death Row.

 

Some fungi - forn example the Amanita, Boletus and Russula species - set up what are termed 'mycorhizal relationships' with trees. This means the fungus and the tree root system co-operate, exchanging nutrients so that each benefits from the presence of the other.

 

 

The Amanita muscaria shown here has a mycorhizal relationship with a pine tree, but it is also capable of striking up a similar alliance with birches and many other tree species.Honey Fungus

 

Honey Fungus, Armillaria mellea (shown here growing on an oak tree) attacks living trees and those that have recently died or been felled.

As stumps decay, a succession of fungus species will appear until all useful nutrients have been extracted from the timber.